Closing down a museum is just as expensive as keeping it open

Disheartening news from the former Red House Museum as reported by The Telegraph and Argus.

Supporters of a former museum which was closed down due to budget cuts more than a year ago have reacted with dismay after it emerged that the Council has spent almost £30,000 on the empty building's upkeep in 12 months.
Kirklees Council, which owns the Grade II listed 17th-century Red House building in Gomersal, closed the museum's doors to the public in December 2016. But it was not until April last year that the building was fully vacated by the museums service.
Since then a total of £27,829.27 has been spent from April 2017 to March 2018, covering such things as repairs, servicing, maintenance - and is almost the same amount as it cost the authority to run while it was functioning as a museum. [...]
Erica Amende of Spen Valley Civic Society said it was interesting how much money was being spent on the empty museum and that she feared it would be some time before the Council disposed of it.
"With respect to Red House the Civic Society’s view is that its closure continues to dismay local residents.
"The Civic Society thinks that it could have been better marketed for its heritage contents and Bronte connections, given the high number of foreign tourists visiting Bronte sites.
"A lot of local historical artefacts in the museum are now not accessible to the public, and there has been no information from the Council about that has happened to them, or any alternative strategy for making them accessible to local people in the future."
The museum was itself a victim of budget cuts within the authority's museums and galleries departments, which was slashed by half. [...]
Paul Kemp, service director of economy, regeneration and culture at Kirklees Council, said: “The closure of Red House Museum was part of a plan to transform Kirklees Council’s Museums and Galleries offer so that it could provide improved customer services for 21st century audiences in the context of a reduced budget. The savings from closure of the museum will exceed the costs of securing the building in the short term until it is disposed of.
"The guardian scheme is a cost effective, efficient means of security that we have used on many occasions. The guardians act as in house security and our experience is that this greatly reduces the risk of vandalism, break ins and anti-social behaviour.
"There is a minimal cost to the council for this scheme as the company which provides the guardians recover the majority of their costs from the fees they charge to the individual guardians."
He added that the marketing of the site for disposal would begin later this year. (Jo Winrow)

Book Riot suggests literary destinations in Scotland.

If you have time for a trip up to the Orkneys, a chain of islands at the very north of Scotland, I’m jealous. I’ve been dying to go there ever since I read The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Margot Livesey’s retelling of Jane Eyre. Set partially on a small Orkney island, the novel brings to life the stunning scenery of the area. (Kathleen Keenan)

The Scotsman features the novel The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers.

The book tells the story of the real-life Cragg Vale Coiners – a gang of weavers and peasants in remote moorland villages near Halifax in the 1760s – who created their own fake coins by clipping the edges off legal coins, remilling them so they were slightly smaller, and collecting the shavings to make counterfeit coins. [...]
Robert Parker, the Halifax solicitor who led the prosecutions against them, is thought by some to have been a possible model for Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, which Emily Bronte wrote just 10 miles away at Howarth [sic].

In Strange World of the Brontës, Marie Campbell tells a bit more about him and the possible Brontë inspiration.

Halifax solicitor Robert Parker has also been likened to Emily Brontë's Heathcliff, for he too rose from obscurity and married a wealthy woman almost twenty years his senior. His wife was Ann Prescott and after their marriage in 1754, Parker went into partnership with her kinsman John Baldwin, a lawyer. Parker quickly rose to become a prominent figure in Halifax. He lent money to Baldwin who defaulted on the debt. Parker took Calico Hall, his debtor's family home in lieu of payment. Robert died a wealthy man but his son Robert Jnr. was a bitter disappointment to him for he was a weakling just as Heathcliff and Isabella's son Linton was. Emily may have heard Parker's story when she was at Law House.

Brontë Babe Blog posts about Jane Austen's juvenilia, comparing it at times with the Brontës'. AnneBrontë.org looks back on the Brontë grandfathers.

The French Infernal World

A new French translation of Daphne du Maurier's The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë has just been published:

Le monde infernal de Branwell Brontë 
by Daphne du Maurier
Translation by Jane Fillion
Gallimard
Collection Petit Quai Voltaire, La Table Ronde
ISBN : 9782710385981
24-05-2018

Branwell est l'enfant maudit de la famille Brontë. L'unique frère de Charlotte, Emily et Anne était pourtant promis à un brillant avenir. C'est lui qui construisit le monde imaginaire de la fratrie, inventa les jeux qui nourriraient l'imagination de ses sœurs, lui qui les inviterait à la création, à l'écriture. Mais l'enfant prodige devint peu à peu un poète déchu s'aidant d'alcool et d'opium pour surmonter la folie, tandis que ses trois sœurs accédaient à la renommée.
En 1960, lorsque de nombreux manuscrits de Branwell sont découverts au presbytère de Haworth, Daphné Du Maurier s'étonne qu'aucun biographe ne se soit penché sur ce sombre personnage. Jane Eyre, Les Hauts de Hurlevent, Agnes Grey... Ces chefs-d'œuvre auraient-ils vu le jour si leurs auteures, durant l'enfance, n'avaient pas connu le monde fantastique façonné par Branwell? C'est la question qu'elle se pose tout au long de ce roman vrai.

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Dark, indeed

This is a very disturbing news item. Daily Express (not the most reliable source, we know) publishes the complaints of a current trustee of the Brontë Society (who is also accused of bullying a member of the staff of the museum) about missing items in the Brontë Parsonage collection:

But this is no novel blueprint – the drama is happening for real at the Brontë Society and it has led to an elderly trustee being partially banned from the Parsonage Museum in a row over “missing” family treasures worth more than £200,000.
Anne Simpson, 79, has been accused of “harassment and bullying” at the museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire, and now faces being forced out of the literary society which preserves the legacy of the Brontë family, the most notable members being Charlotte, Emily and Anne.
Mrs Simpson launched her own inquiry after noticing some items in the society’s inventory, including letters and books, were recorded as “not seen”, but claimed her concerns were brushed aside.
Shortly afterwards, Mrs Simpson received 60 pages of the last official appraisal of the Brontë Collection by auction house Christie’s in 2011.
According to the inventory, posted to Mrs Simpson by a museum source, Brontë artefacts worth £200,000 entrusted to the Parsonage were recorded as “not seen”.
The 15 items, mainly letters and books, donated or bought by society members, are believed to include two letters sent to former servant Martha Brown by the family in 1849 and 1854, together valued at £120,000.
Also worth tens of thousands is correspondence with artist JH Thompson, who produced a portrait of Charlotte, her suitor Henry Nussey and WS Williams, literary editor of publishers Smith Elder.
Mrs Simpson said she was assured by a staff member that they were all accounted for and regarded the case as closed, but the woman complained about her behaviour and she found herself accused of harassment, bullying, fiddling expenses and failing to attend meetings. All four complaints against her were upheld following an investigation.
Mrs Simpson said: “These allegations arose following my request, using due process, for information as to where certain items in the Parsonage Museum Collection were stored. My offers to go to mediation in order to resolve this dispute in private have been refused.” (...)
John Thirlwell, chairman of the society’s board of trustees, said: “The board investigated the concerns raised by Mrs Simpson and satisfied itself that the collection is completely safe and secure and managed in accordance with our accredited museum status.
“In not one of the Christie’s inventory documents is any item marked as ‘missing’ and the specific items referred to in the inquiry from Mrs Simpson are all accounted for and in secure storage. (Mark Branagan)

We wonder, in our naivety, wouldn't it be simpler to show the 'missing' items publicly and end the controversy?
EDIT: The Daily Mail (surprise, surprise) echoes the news. As does The Times.

The Guardian has an article about rose breeder David Austin:

At 92, Austin is still involved in the rose business, meeting every morning with his breeder Carl Bennett to discuss progress. The breeding programme continues apace. Nearly 60 years after his first rose, ‘Constance Spry’, made its debut, three new Austin roses were launched at the Chelsea flower show. Each took a decade or so to develop, from pollinating the parent plant to it finally going on sale to the public: ‘Tottering-By-Gently’ is a buttery yellow single rose that is great for bees and has particularly good hips; ‘The Mill on the Floss’ is a mid-pink deeply cupped bloom; and ‘Emily Brontë’ is a variety with neat pale pink and apricot flowers. (Jane Perrone)

The Daily Mail interviews the television and radio presenter, Zoë Ball:

The book I give as a gift
I like looking in old bookshops and finding beautiful copies of the classics, so probably an old volume of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. I’m always moved by how she wrote it so young – it was published when she was 29, the year before she died. I find the Brontë sisters in general very impressive, as they managed to be so industrious in a time when women had so few opportunities. (Gwen Smith)

The Sunday Times reviews A View of the Empire at Sunset by Caryl Phillips:

This is not his first conversation with a dead female writer: The Lost Child (2015) was inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Rhys, too, had entered into dialogue with a Brontë. Her final masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), explored the life of Jane Eyre’s Bertha before she became the madwoman in Rochester’s attic. Authorial interests, then, are gloriously tangled. (Lucy Atkins)

Anchorage Daily News reviews the novel The Wild Inside by Jamey Bradbury:

Bradbury, who has an M.F.A. degree from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and has written for this newspaper, has also served in the Peace Corps and worked for two years as an assistant to the novelist John Irving. Irving has praised "The Wild Inside" as "an unusual love story and a creepy horror novel—think of the Bronte sisters and Stephen King." (Nancy Lord)

The Toronto Star talks about the TV series Southern Charm:

For a long time, its biggest juice revolved around Thomas Ravenel — a former politician and very definition of Good Ol’ Boy who once actually went to jail for 10 months for drug trafficking — and his on-off, way younger squeeze, the aforementioned Kathryn, whom he managed to knock up not once but twice! All within the span of the life of the show.
Think of them as a kind of inky-dark answer to Heathcliff and Catherine. With a dash of Get Out. (Shinan Govani)

El Tiempo (Argentina) interviews singer Julieta Venegas:

Sentada en un sillón al fondo de la librería Eterna Cadencia, en Palermo, Buenos Aires, Julieta Venegas lee ‘Jane Eyre’, de Charlotte Brontë. La novela publicada en 1847 es uno de los títulos que la cantante mexicana eligió para compartir con el público en la clase magistral de la temporada 2018 del Ciclo de Letras del Centro Cultural San Martín.
En la charla ‘Mi vida como lectora’, Venegas interpreta algunas de sus canciones y lee fragmentos de los textos que marcaron su experiencia como lectora. “Jane Eyre es un libro muy importante para mí. Como dicen los adultos cuando quieren que un niño lea: ‘Algún día vas a encontrar un libro en el que te veas reflejado’. Eso me pasó a mí con ‘Jane Eyre’ ”. (Natalia Blanc) (Translation)

Grazia (France) quotes actress Lily James saying:

"Ces personnages n'ont rien à voir les uns avec les autres mais partagent le même amour des livres. Ils s'échappent à travers les mots de Jane Austen ou Charlotte Brontë, c'est follement romantique. Le cinéma et la littérature ont cela de magique qu'ils font tomber les barrières." (Perrine Sabbat) (Translation)

Página 12 (Argentina) discusses Angela Carter:

Si se me pide una definición diré que Angela Carter es como una Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen que se cayó en un burbujeante caldero con LSD hasta los bordes con Kate Bush como música de fondo. O una Brontë liviana de hermanas, independiente y trotamundos. En un mundo mejor y más justo, a Carter deberían volverse adictos los millones de jóvenes que se quedaron sin su dosis de Harry Potter o de vampirismo para escolares. (Rodrigo Fresán) (Translation)

Epic Reads publishes an excerpt from the upcoming novel My Plain Jane; Mille (et une) lectures de Maeve (in French) reviews Daphne du Maurier's The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë. The Sisters' Room reviews the Italian translation of Emily Brontë by Agnes Mary Robinson.

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A Dream about Reality

An alert in Weilburg, Germany. More than a talk, maybe less than a theatre performance:

Residenz-Buchhandlung present
Matinée: Die Geschwister Bronte - Ein Traum über die Wirklichkeit
June 17, 11:00 AM
Bergbau- und Stadtmuseum

Tauchen Sie ein in eine Familiengeschichte, ein Leben zwischen Traum und Realität. Dem Publikum öffnet sich eine Welt voller Phantasie und verwunschener Atmosphäre. Wer waren die Geschwister Bronte wirklich? Kommen Sie mit auf eine Reise durch das Leben dreier weltbekannter faszinierender Frauen und deren Kampf ums Überleben.

Via Weilburger Tageblatt.

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"Time cannot sour, but only mellows him"

Recent and current activities at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Keighley News:

Birthday celebrations for Emily Brontë are really taking flight as the Parsonage Museum prepares for a second packed six months of activities.
The Haworth museum recently launched its Wings of Desire exhibition, which will run until July 23, and is free with admission to the museum.
And on the Brontë Society website it has released details of the next few events coming up before the end of the summer.
Keighley Central ward councillor Cllr Zafar Ali, the Lord Mayor of Bradford, was among guests during the launch of Wings of Desire this month.
Artist Kate Whiteford has produced new work inspired by the merlin hawk that Wuthering Heights author Emily nursed back to health in the mid-19th-century.
Kate, who specialises in land art, has combined film, poetry, music and paintings, and created a centrepiece film featuring footage of birds of prey in flight, the local landscape, and a birds-eye view of the flight to Top Withins.
The soundtrack includes Chloe Pirrie, who played Emily in 2016 Brontë biopic To Walk Invisible, reading from Emily’s poem The Caged Bird, and music from folk group The Unthanks.
The film can be seen in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where there will also be Kate’s framed watercolour pictures inspired by Aerial Archaeology photographs of the Yorkshire Dales.
In the exhibition Whiteford meditates upon the iconography of the bird of prey, its metaphorical properties and associations with fight and flight, escape and predation. (...)
The Bronte Parsonage Museum will continue its monthly talks on Tuesdays at 11am and 2pm, and the next one on July 3 will be entitled My Dungeon Bars.
A spokesman said: “Emily Brontë rarely left her native Yorkshire and when she did, it was with reluctance.
“This talk looks at the few experiences Emily had in the world at large and explores the idea that for her, home represented freedom, and her ‘dungeon bars’ were the constraint and alienation she felt when she was away.”
The talk is free with admission to the museum.
The Brontë Society is teaming up with Bradford Literature Festival to present a special event in Haworth on July 8 from 4pm to 5.30pm.
Renowned poet Jackie Kay will return to the village to celebrate the unveiling of her work commemorating Anne Brontë, specially commissioned by the festival, as part of the Brontë Stones project.
Jackie will read her work in Parson’s Field behind the Parsonage, where the Anne Stone is sited, then afterwards in the nearby Old School Room. She will team up with journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed to explore her inspiration, her work, and her affinity with Anne Brontë. (...)
Melanie Abrahams, this year’s guest curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, will lead a walk along Brontë pathways and moorlands on July 23.
She will be joined by guest speakers and artists John Agard, Sarala Estruch and Joe Williams, and local writer Tamar Yellin, as well as members of the public.
During a ‘walk of life’, inviting contemplation, reflection, and philosophical musings, they will be able to hear unfolding narratives, alternative stories and flights of fancy along both well-trodden paths, and lesser known routes. (...)
Until August 31, visitors to the museum can see one of the National Portrait Gallery’s most important pictures back in its original home. (David Knights)

Sarah Shoemaker, author of the Jane Eyre sequel Mr Rochester, defends him in the letters to the editor of The New York Times:

To the Editor:
Lauren Groff (By the Book, May 27) seems confident that Charlotte Brontë “knew” Mr. Rochester was “a villain.” However, one year after the publication of “Jane Eyre,” Brontë wrote to her editor: “Mr. Rochester has a thoughtful nature and a very feeling heart; he is neither selfish nor self-indulgent; he is ill-educated, misguided; errs, when he does err, through rashness and inexperience: he lives for a time as too many other men live, but being radically better than most men, he does not like that degraded life, and is never happy in it. He is taught the severe lessons of experience and has sense to learn wisdom from them. Years improve him; the effervescence of youth foamed away, what is really good in him still remains. His nature is like wine of a good vintage: time cannot sour, but only mellows him. Such at least was the character I meant to portray.”

The Irish Times insists on imposing a contemporary view without context:

As much as we might love the novel, she adds, “the Wuthering Heights version of love is horrible and damaged. If anybody came to me who was suffering what Cathy suffered you'd be telling them to call the guards.” (Jennifer O'Connell)

AltDaily reviews the Williamsburg (VA) performances of Jane Eyre. The Musical:

There is no shortage of talent in this cast and crew. Every single facet of this production stood out. The many costume designers, MJ Devaney, Dylan George, Lisa Neun, Amy Stallings, Alex Swanenburg, Jeri Sherritt, Elizabeth Farrell, and Linda Auge, must be mentioned in this piece. I cannot praise their talents enough. Every character had the perfect choice of clothing put on them, and it added to the gothic and dark vibe of the show in a way that cannot be understated. (...)
Jeff Nicoloff as Edward Fairfax Rochester gave a stellar performance and was definitely a crowd favorite as a singer (even for those of us that did not enjoy the character he portrayed). Music director Richard Whitley, choreographer Dana Margulies Cauthern, and all of the musicians should be incredibly proud of their work. (Raven Hudson)

The Sydney Morning Herald talks about the Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever (Sydney and Melbourne):

The ethereal voice! The haunting lyrics! The red dress! It's 40 years since Kate Bush's blustery, bewitching single Wuthering Heights soared to the No. 1 spot on the singles charts in Australia and the UK and its rapturously reviewed album, The Kick Inside, propelled a 19-year-old daughter of a doctor from Kent to eternal pop music fame. At a time when Michael Jackson and ABBA were opting for blinged-up studio productions for their music videos, Bush chose an English moor, a simple red dress and some quirky, sensual moves. (...)
Since 2016, when the first Wuthering Heights re-enactment was held, up to 500 people have attended each event in Melbourne and Sydney. This year, more than 20 events are being staged worldwide, including 10 in Australia, to mark not just the 40th anniversary of Wuthering Heights and The Kick Inside, but Bush's 60th birthday on July 30.
The question is, why this need to "wuther"? "I love being kooky," says Michelle Kitzler, a caterer and mother of five from Bondi. "Growing up as a tomboy, I saw Kate as a figure of strength." (Greg Callaghan)

The Manawatū Standard (New Zealand) has an interesting story about the history of the Nga Tawa Diocesan School which was founded by Mary Taylor's niece:

One day in 1891, Miss Mary Taylor decided to open a girls' school in her home.
The setting was beautiful: a rambling country house with extensive grounds, surrounded by tall tawa trees, a few miles north of Shannon at the foothills of the Tararua Range.
Mary was well-educated, and a music teacher. She and her brother Waring Taylor, both originally from Yorkshire, lived together in his farm homestead.
Mary was known as May, to distinguish her from her aunt Mary Taylor (close friend of Charlotte Bronte) who had sailed to New Zealand to join her own brother, William Waring Taylor, but later returned to England. (Tina White)

Cambridge Independent reminds us that Kate Mosse

has also written three works of non-fiction, four plays and is curating a collection of short stories inspired by Wuthering Heights to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Emily Brontë’s birth in 2018. (Gemma Gardner)

The Irish Times reviews Girl with Dove by Sally Bayley:

The young Bayley retreats into the various foreign terrains in literature, first devouring the beginner’s books Peter and Jane and Milly-Molly-Mandy, but moving swiftly to the adult section of the library and on to Miss Marple, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield and Betsy Trotwood. Each of the fictional characters take on, to Bayley’s mind at least, the form of real people; as immediate and lifelike to her as the very strange women she lives with. The characters prove a lifeline in a childhood that the reader eventually realises has been pockmarked with neglect, isolation and trauma. The literary characters become her friends, her advisers, her eventual saviours. (Tanya Sweeney)

Daily Mail talks to some quiz shows presenters:

Judith Keppel: ‘Everyone thinks I’m going to be brilliant in a pub quiz team but, much to my frustration, I can never retain the information,’ says Ben Shephard. ‘I will always confuse kings and queens, the Brontë sisters and various characters from Dickens.’ (Jenny Johnston)

Vanity Fair on Netflix romantic comedies:

But there are no P.S.A.s on the teen romance The Kissing Booth, a film Ted Sarandos told Adalian was “one of the most watched movies in the country, and maybe in the world.” That Netflix production, which debuted May 11, is a monument to underage eroticism, starting with the 16-year-old protagonist Elle (Joey King) learning on the first day back to school that over the summer, she became a hot girl. It’s like Grease, but with even less attention to consequences, or Twilight through the lens of The O.C. The Brontë sisters would have loved the barely suppressed anger issues of hot love interest Noah (Jacob Elordi); maybe the movie arose out of a need to appeal to viewer clusters trying to find both a dupe for summer reading and titles that have since left Netflix. (Sonia Saraiya)

The Australian reviews Manderley Forever: The Life of Daphne Du Maurier by Tatiana de Rosnay

She is best known for a few prominent novels, but her other fiction frequently challenges. The shifting authorial voice in The Parasites (1949) is striking. Her nonfiction books are consistently readable: gripping narratives that bring times, family and characters alive, notably her father as well as Branwell Brontë and the Bacon brothers, Francis and Anthony. (Jill Burton)

An Emily Brontë mention in Varsity:

Anyway, the burdens of the world settled upon my shoulders yesterday morning and, like in an Emily Brontë novel (there is actually only one), it did begin to drizzle. The horrid kind that makes my hair look like candyfloss. Once I had sent some self-pitying Snapchats about pathetic fallacy, I sat and moped some more. (Julia Davies)

The Times reviews Caitlin Moran's How to be Famous:

It’s quite a ride, this book. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, sweetly romantic and fiercely angry. Often all at once. Sometimes the wordplay of the autodidact desperately seeking synonyms becomes exhausting; rock stars are “be-leathered yodellers” in Dolly’s publish-me-pleeeeeeease lexicon. At other times, Moran, a Times columnist, calms down and riffs on authors she loves, like the Brontës, and those moments are beautifully written. (Melissa Katsoulis)

Coconut cake à la North and South in The Guardian:

During my teenage years, in the absence of a love story in my own life, I lost myself in fictional romances. I sat in drawing rooms and walked in gardens with Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferras. I fell in love with George Emerson over a dinner table in Florence. My heart broke for the English patient, and his memories of Katharine Clifton. I took a seat in a Manhattan restaurant alongside Carol and Therese. I wandered dark hallways in Thornfield, and then escaped with Jane Eyre in the middle of the night. I agonised with Stevens as he recalled lost moments with Miss Kenton. I swooned at the letter sent from Frederick Wentworth to Anne Elliot. (Kate Young)

National Post reviews the film Beast:

 The chief suspect is Pascal Renouf (Johnny Flynn), a dark anti-hero of the Wuthering Heights variety.  (Chris Knight)

Isle of Man Today talks about the new exhibition of the local artist Bruno Cavellec:

Bruno, originally from the Breton port of Lorient, and now settled in Peel, said that he was greatly inspired by the romanticism movement on the late 18th century, and by his love of writers such as the Brontë sisters and the painter Caspar David Friedrich, and that he wanted to revisit his initial inspirations again.
’This is about the man and the artist that I am now, at nearly 60, painting how I felt when I was 20,’ said Bruno.
’It is why the quote from T.S Eliott is very real to me. It is going back to the beginning and discovering Friedrich and Brontë again. Wuthering Heights was one of my favourite novels when I was a teenager. (Mike Wade)

America Magazine reviews Last Stories by William Trevor:

Despite many of his stories’ bourgeois trappings, Trevor has never shied away from something like the Gothic, the nearly horrific side of everything from romantic passion to parenthood. This collection’s “An Idyll in Winter” seems, at first, a mere sketch of a schoolgirl and her older male tutor, looking back with decidedly mixed feelings on their brief time together. “We are close to moorland,” the girl’s mother warns the tutor before he takes the job. “You may find the solitude oppressive.” Of course, he reads Wuthering Heights to his student and quips that the moors are “very Heathcliffian.” (Throughout Last Stories, Trevor indulges a weakness for literary allusion.) (Tom Deignan)

Fairfax County Times talks about the singer Marie Miller:

Last year, her album “Letterbox” became her most popular to date, and many of its songs were inspired by literature, just as her early writing was. The song “Story,” for example, touches on epic characters such as Heathcliff and Catherine from “Wuthering Heights,” and Hector’s wife Andromache from “The Iliad.” (Keith Loria)

Cineséries Magazine (France) reviews the film version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society:

 La saveur piquante n’apparaît que deux fois dans le film : quand les protagonistes hauts en couleurs (et en caricatures) se disputent sur la supériorité d’Emily sur Anne Brontë, que Juliet défend pourtant bec et ongles et lors du générique ! (Chloé Margueritte) (Translation)

Il Manifesto (Italy) on Emily Dickinson:

Eppure, alla morte del padre, sceglie la via della clausura, si chiude in camera di bianco vestita, nella casa di famiglia, lasciando ostinatamente la vita e il caos del mondo al di là di una candida tenda di pizzo fino al sopraggiungere della morte, che la coglie nel suo letto per una nefrite a soli 55 anni. Perché una donna che legge Cime Tempestose e rifiuta l’ipocrisia della società opponendosi alla «disubbidienza in segreto» decide di chiudersi in una gabbia? (Beatrice Fiorentino) (Translation)

Shine (China) informs that Wuthering Heights 2011 will be screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival (June 18 and 23); M. Miles pairs Vincent Van Gogh and Jane Eyre. My Jane Eyre explores a facsimile edition of Jane Eyre's manuscript. The Brontë Babe posts about Charlotte Brontë's Stancliffe's Hotel.

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Wuthering Heights Summer Ball

We are not at all sure that Heathcliff (nor Emily Brontë) would ever sanction something like this but here it comes:

Wuthering Heights Summer Ball
June 16, 2018 18:30
 At Royal Over Seas League, London

Cathy and Heathcliff request your company at Wuthering Heights for their summer ball to celebrate the 200th birthday of their beloved Emily Brontë. With champagne in hand, join your fellow lords, ladies, and debutantes in our garden and meet your favourite characters from this Brontë classic. Our talented actors from Past Pleasures will be immersing guests in the Georgian period as they interact with guests and recreate the tragic love story of Heathcliff and Cathy throughout the evening. Afterwards, head to our banqueting hall for a three-course meal with wine.

Take home a momento of the evening with your very own Georgian selfie. The UK’s most popular silhouette artist Charles Burns, who has cut not one but two portraits of Her Majesty the Queen, will be on hand throughout the evening to capture your striking Georgian profile.

After the final act of the play and dessert, join our actors in the ballroom and try your hand at traditional period dancing. Once your feet are too tired, or you simply prefer the comfort of a nice armchair, relax in the back of the Duke of York bar and listen to the relaxing melodies of our harpist.

Make sure you take advantage of our exclusive 2-4-1 room offer if you are attending the ball. When you book one night in a deluxe double or twin room, you’ll get the second night for free. As we know the ball is a time for you to show off the club to friends and family who may not necessarily be a member, for this weekend only we will also be allowing non-members to stay in our accommodation with our new Guest Passes. Contact our Reservations team for more information on +44 (0)20 7408 0214.

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The (Emily) Brontë Myth

The Guardian reviews the book Emily Brontë Reappraised by Claire O’Callaghan. It is interesting to see that neither the book nor the newspaper use a verified image of Emily.

Two hundred years after her birth Emily Brontë is still remembered as an oddball, a people-hater and the weirdest of three weird sisters.
But a book published this week aims to rehabilitate the reputation of the author of Wuthering Heights, one of the greatest novels ever written: she may have been shy and reserved but she was not strange and should be seen as a woman ahead of her time, the academic Claire O’Callaghan argues.
O’Callaghan said Brontë’s reputation was entirely carved out by others, a lot of it based on the writings of Charlotte, who was responding to criticism of her sisters Emily and Anne.
“She adopted the strategy of appealing for pity by presenting her sisters as a bit weird and a bit strange, people who did not really know what they were doing,” said O’Callaghan.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte embellished the stories even further. “Those founding images have been extended and reworked and dramatised and amplified, they have become mythic up until the present really.”
O’Callaghan said Emily had been portrayed in many ways, usually negative. Sometimes she was “a staid, old-fashioned, people-hating spinster who roamed about the Yorkshire moors alone with her dog” or “a painfully shy and socially awkward girl-woman who was sick whenever she left home” or “she’s a stubborn and defiant woman who willingly withheld assorted physical and mental ailments, or an ethereal soul too fragile to endure the real world”.
She said the myths were damaging. “They perpetuate this idea she was weird and different and strange and other in a way that is quite hostile.”
O’Callaghan said it was true Emily was shy, or reserved, and craved solitude and enjoyed getting out the house walking on the moors with her dog Keeper, a large mastiff. But this did not make her odd.
“Today when we think about character traits and personality traits we take a different approach to things, we try to accommodate and understand differences or social awkwardness or anxieties or just different ways of being. We try not to stigmatise people.”
O’Callaghan’s book also explores how Emily might fit in today, arguing she would be more at home in a more accepting, tolerant, feminist society.
Brontë’s only novel was Wuthering Heights, the violent and passionate story of the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff.
O’Callaghan said the novel was still seen as a love story and that too needs re-examining. “I think it is about a lot more and I think that love story is quite a damaging one … I think it can be read as a cautionary tale against damaging romance and violent romance.”
Heathcliff is clearly a horrible man “yet he is often read as the archetypal anti-hero. I really question that word hero. He is just vile from the outset.”
In the era of Time’s Up and #MeToo, O’Callaghan, a lecturer in English at Loughborough University, said it was a good time to re-evaluate. “Maybe the time’s up on Heathcliff … we need to take off the romantic blinkers and we need to look at him more critically.” (Mark Brown)

We haven't read the book yet but while any effort to reach the real Brontës has our admiration, it is also true that Emily's - real or artificial - reputation has, if anything, helped her 'popularity'. And we can't forget that she was a 19th-century woman - we may not 'stigmatise' people in the 21st century (even if we actually do) but they most certainly did back then. A recluse woman writer who penned a book like Wuthering Heights never had it easy. That is not to say that it is fair, simply that it's understandable. Political correctness can't be retroactive and we have to accept that.

France Culture has a podcast (in French, obviously: Le Journal de la Philo) and a lengthy article on Emily Brontë and her bicentenary.

Ce sera le 30 juillet, mais déjà nous pouvons nous préparer à ce grand événement : le bicentenaire de la naissance d’Emily Brontë. Emily Brontë, née en 1818, morte seulement 30 ans plus tard, en 1848, d’une tuberculose qu’elle avait refusée de soigner. Sœur de Charlotte et Anne, une sororité dont on a tout imaginé, l’enfance, les jeux, les rêves…, on doit à Emily Brontë un seul roman… mais quel roman ! [...]
Car Emily Brontë incarne à elle seule le mystère philosophique de l’auteur. Elle en est le paradoxe : d’elle on connaît assez de choses pour l’identifier, mais trop peu pour signer définitivement son portrait… et à l’inverse des œuvres qu’on explique par la vie de leur auteur, on tente souvent de la saisir, elle, mais en passant au contraire par son œuvre…
D’Emily Brontë, il nous reste des poèmes, publiés un an avant sa mort et parce que sa sœur l’avait voulu. Il nous reste des traces de ce qu’elle a écrit, mais pas d’elle comme auteure, de ses processus, de ses mobiles, de ses affects qui l’animaient.
De la même manière que ses personnages ont pour ressort le mystère, il en est de même pour son geste d’auteure : qu’est-ce qui a fait qu’elle est devenue auteure ? Qu’est-ce qui fait qu’elle s’est autorisée à l’être ? Et qu’est-ce qui pourrait nous l’expliquer dans ce qu’elle a signé comme auteure ?
Dans ce poème qui s’appelle « A l’imagination », elle célèbre cette « folle du logis », cette faculté puissante mais dont la logique échappe… et avec Emily Brontë, apparaît la possibilité puissante, folle et illogique aussi d’une autorisation prise sans la demander, d’une autorisation d’écrire et de signer de sa plume et de son nom, sans choisir pourtant d’être lue, elle, visible, explicable grâce à son œuvre, tel n’importe quel auteur. (Géraldine Mosna-Savoye) (Translation)

The Imaginative Conservative recommends '10 Poetry Books for Graduates'.

7) And now for another Emily. For Gothic verse, for sheer empathic skill in one so young, I enjoy the Everyman edition of Emily Brontë. Once again, it’s bite-sized and not as thick a tome as her complete poems. True, Brontë often deals in death and grief because it was the reality of the day, but that should not dissuade. or obscure her brighter moments. Consider “No Coward Soul Is Mine” and “Love and Friendship.” (Christine Norvell)

British Film Institute celebrates the 25th anniversary of The Piano.

“I read a short treatment [of The Piano], and I responded to it very strongly,” [producer Jan Chapman] recalls. “There was an essence that went back to Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights in its expression of female desire. It’s ironic, because it is about male and female attraction and sexuality, but it’s also about a private insight into the female version of that. It ignited me, and I thought it was enough to ignite other people.” (Nikki Baughan)

Cracked has selected '5 'Lovesick' Fictional Characters Who Are Really Just Dicks', including Mr Rochester.

In Jane Eyre, The Male Lead Has A Secret Wife Trapped In His House
Despite their predilection for casual racism, I love classic novels. I've spent many a night on the couch curled up with some literary oldies, and the Bronte sisters always came through. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (which has gotten many, many film adaptations) is one of the first classic romantic novels I'd ever read in which both the female and male leads were described as straight up ugly. As a young lady getting smacked in the face by puberty, I found that intriguing. Throughout all the twists and turns and trifling side chicks, I kept rooting for Jane and Mr. Rochester to beat the odds and end up together. Two 5s coming together to make a 10. It oddly won me over as a preteen.
In fact, at the climax, Rochester winds up badly burned and thus "uglier" than ever, one more tragedy in a miserable life he needs rescued from. But there's just the minor problem that ROCHESTER WAS HIDING HIS WIFE IN A SECRET ROOM THE WHOLE TIME.
Not that there were no red flags prior to that. At one point, Rochester disguises himself as a female fortune teller solely to fuck with Jane's head. Annoying people on Facebook share a meme that says "Back in my day, when a relationship was broken, we didn't throw it away. We fixed it." But I don't think that quote ever counted on the "broken" part being due to your dude dressing up a lady magician to cause you psychological torment. Also, Rochester maintains an engagement with another woman for a period of time just to try to get a rise out of Jane. Nothing gets your ladies excited like proposing to another woman, fellas.
But neither of these relationship absurdities come close to the fact that this man has a secret wife trapped in his house that no one in the whole damn city knew about. And Jane only finds out about it on their wedding day. Of course, Edward "Master of Disguises" Rochester plays it off like "Well, you know, we all come with some baggage." True, Edward, but if we're talking about baggage, you're basically wearing a suitcase as a shirt. You have a secret wife that you've kept in the house that JANE IS LIVING IN. "Secret imprisoned wife nobody knows about" is a step away from being a Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel.
But the secret wife dies by suicide, and so Jane can swoop in and marry him herself. So ... it all worked out, I guess? (Archie Grimm)

The Irish Times interviews writer Caroline O’Donoghue about her debut novel Promising Young Women.

Things begin to descend for Jane and the book takes on a surreal quality that oddly deepens the realism. As I was writing, I was also rereading Jane Eyre and I realised it’s more or less the same arc. Jane Eyre is a workplace romance; add a HR department and it could be now. And there are weird supernatural elements that never get into the film adaptations, like when Rochester dresses up as a gypsy and when she can hear him calling across hundreds of miles. You write about the impossible because it’s the only way to adequately describe how it actually feels. You make all that stuff external. Toni Morrison does that exceptionally well with topics that push against what it’s actually possible to envision in the modern world. The psychic weight of the things she’s dealing with is so heavy she had to create a new language and a new series of references. This is how it looks, she implies, because this is how it feels. (Darran Anderson)

Times Leader tells about a recent book sale at Osterhout Free Library (Wilkes-Barre, PA).

Vintage books included Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” printed in 1926, “Great Detective Stories,” printed in 1928 and “Lassie Come Home,” printed in 1940. There was even a copy of Charlotte Brontë’s “Villette,” which some critics prefer to her more well-known “Jane Eyre.” (Mary Therese Biebel)

Nouse has all sort of reading recommendations for the summer, including

or the tightwad- the person who scrimps and saves, even on holiday
First off, get a Kindle. It might seem like a splurge, but you will save so much money in the long run if you’re a big reader. Most books are at least a couple of pounds cheaper in electronic format than paper, and any book which is now out of copyright is free. That means that Dickens, Austen, the Brontës, and Hardy are all available for absolutely nothing. They’re also all fairly lengthy tomes so will keep you going all summer long. Plus, Kindles are light so you won’t have to be paying any extra baggage charges for all those hardbacks you’d otherwise be cramming into your suitcase. (Stella Newing)

A Novel Library posts about Jane Eyre. The Library Ladies review My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows. When in Doubt, Read! posts about the 1974 book H: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire-Sargeant. On YouTube Lucy the Reader discusses the Brontës and beauty as part of this month's book club read of Jane Eyre.

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Wuthering Legend Heights

Legend Press publishes a new edition of Wuthering Heights in their Legend Classics collection, with a cover design by Anna Morrison:

Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Publisher: Legend Press (4 Jun. 2018)
ISBN-13: 978-1787198487

Catherine Earnshaw had no idea that the boy her father took in from the streets of Liverpool would one day become her lover, her soul mate. Nor did she know that her decision to marry someone else would send him down the path of destruction.
Once a novel criticised for its display of mental and physical cruelty, Wuthering Heights is now a considered a 19th century classic. It’s themes of gender inequality and violence driven by passion still resonate with readers today.

More information on the collection in The Bookseller.

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A Brontë item for the Great Exhibition of the North

Newcastle Chronicle Live features some of the 100 objects  that museums have picked from their collections for the Great Exhibition of the North (June 22 and September 9). Here's what the Brontë Parsonage Museum has selected:

Museums across the North of England have joined together to show off the 100 objects which best illustrate the region.
The History of the North in 100 objects is an online-based project which aims to showcase the north’s “pioneering spirit and impact of the north of England’s inventors, artists, scientists and designers”. (...)
Emily Brontë’s Writing Desk, c.1830s-1840s Brontë Parsonage Museum (Yorkshire)
This writing desk, complete with original contents, is a symbol of the creative force that was Emily Brontë.
It is filled with treasures and relics commemorating Emily’s literary career: a magpie hoard of pen nibs, sealing wax, five newspaper reviews of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and a letter offering the only suggestion that she was working on a second novel. Contemporary accounts tell us that she and her sisters wrote at their desks in the Parsonage dining room each evening.
Her magnum opus ‘Wuthering Heights’ was published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. Brontë died a year later aged 30. (Simon Meechan)

The same site has another, more general article on the event.

What are the upcoming highlights?
It depends on your interests, of course, but there really is something to attract everybody.
Whether you are keen to see the famous Stephenson’s Rocket which is making a special visit ‘home’ or John Lennon’s piano - or perhaps Emily Brontë’s writing desk; a Lowry painting or the oldest surviving FA Cup in the world - there are unique opportunities to get up close and personal with famous exhibits. (Barbara Hodgson)

The Guardian recommends the 'Top 10 lost women's classics', which are certainly worth looking at. According to the columnist,

There wouldn’t be a thirst for workplace romances if Charlotte Brontë hadn’t drawn up the template for them. (Caroline O'Donoghue)

The Christian Science Monitor reviews A View of the Empire at Sunset by Caryl Phillips.

 In “A View of the Empire at Sunset,” the latest novel by Caryl Phillips, the writer returns to the themes of racism and colonialism through an imagined account of the life of author Jean Rhys. Phillips draws upon the events of Rhys’s real life, using it as a scaffold upon which to write his tale, to explore a sense of “otherness” and isolation amidst shifting power struggles.
Rhys, best known for her book “Wide Sargasso Sea,” lived one of those lives that embodied the arc of the 20th century. She came of age during the societal strictures of the Edwardian Era and the fading influence of the British Empire and persisted (yes, a deliberate word choice) through the feminist movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s.
Phillips borrows one of Rhys’s own techniques. Readers might recall that, in “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Rhys also embellished a tale with an imagined life. A prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s novel “Jane Eyre,” she crafted a backstory for Mr. Rochester’s wife, the madwoman confined to the attic. She illuminates the woman’s experiences, giving her a voice and a perspective that counters the original patriarchal narrative.
It is no coincidence that the life of Mr. Rochester’s wife echoes Rhys’s own life – a shared Caribbean background and a sense of isolation on another continent that leaves them stranded between two cultures. It is likely no coincidence that Phillips’s life follows a similar pattern. He was born on St. Kitts but grew up in Great Britain. (Joan Gaylord)

Wide Sargasso Sea is also mentioned in a review of The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison in The Spectator.

I struggled with Jamison’s literary criticism on occasion, for although painstaking it can be narrow in its focus here. I didn’t love being told, by way of introduction, that Berryman’s unforgettable and wildly innovative poems The Dream Songs conjure‘ a landscape full of booze and tortured knowledge’; nor that the stately and magnificent Wide Sargasso Sea is a novel in which Jean Rhys’s ‘core wounds, alienation and abandonment’ are found ‘in the imagined life of someone else’. No novelist wants to be read like that. (Susie Boyt)

The Nerd Daily recommends June releases, including

My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton
Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and one orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Brontë, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights. (Elise Dumpleton)

As does Today:

11. "My Plain Jane" by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows and Brodi Ashton, $14, Amazon
Penniless Jane Eyre and brooding Mr. Rochester may seem familiar, but the classic story gets a weird twist that includes a murder mystery and a ghost hunt. Although the book isn't available until June 26, pre-order it now and be the first to read it. (Danielle Wolf)

On the Brussels Brontë Blog, Eric Ruijssenaars looks at several places in Brussels at the time of the Brontës' stay in the city.

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Every Single Secret

This is a recently published novel with strong Emily Brontë echoes:

Every Little Secret
by Emily Carpenter
Publisher: Lake Union Publishers
ISBN: 1503951901

Emotionally guarded Daphne Amos always believed she’d found a kindred spirit in her fiancé, Heath. Both very private people, they’ve kept their pasts hidden from the world, and each other, until Heath’s escalating nightmares begin to put an undeniable strain on their relationship. Determined to give their impending marriage the best chance of succeeding, Heath insists that Daphne join him on a seven-day retreat with Dr. Matthew Cerny, a psychologist celebrated for getting to the root of repressed memories. Daphne reluctantly agrees—even though the past is the last place she wants to go.
The retreat’s isolated and forbidding location increases her unease, as do the doctor’s rules: they must relinquish their keys and phones, they’ll be monitored at all hours by hidden cameras, and they’re never to socialize with the other guests.
One sleepless night, Daphne decides to leave her room…and only then does she realize that the institute is not at all what it seems—and that whatever’s crying out from Heath’s past isn’t meant to be heard. It’s meant to be silenced.

Deep South Magazine interviews the author who clarifies the Brontë influence:

Erin Z. Bass: What books or writers inspired you for this novel?EC: I was very inspired by a movie “Ex Machina” that takes place in one house, and things are not as they seem and the main character has to figure it all out. He goes from amused to annoyed to suspicious to terrified, and it’s just delicious. Masterful. The book that inspired me was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The love story—or obsession story, people differ on what it actually is—between Heathcliff and Catherine was a bit of a mirror for some relationships in the book, as you’ll see by the opening quote.
EZB: Your main character is named Heath in a nod to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and you say in your acknowledgements that this book is “an unabashed love letter to Emily Brontë.” Can you talk more about that?
EC: I can’t tell you too much about why Heath is named what he is, or how it relates to the story, but I will say, I think that love and obsession are often closely linked and I think Emily Brontë nailed that concept in a way that nobody else has. The proof being that half the people who read Wuthering Heights swoon at Heathcliff and think he’s the most romantic of heroes, and the other half think he’s the opposite. The book’s not an easy read because the language and structure is really of its time, but the story is powerful and so emotional and completely relatable in these modern times.

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The Branwell Brontë of the Trump clan

Publishers Weekly features YA writers Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows, who speak about their new book My Plain Jane.

Ashton: Which reminds me, do we have a new book coming out soon or what?
Hand: Oh, yeah. We do have a new book coming out. A new Jane. My Plain Jane. I like to think of this book as Jane Eyre meets Ghostbusters.
Meadows: It’s pretty widely believed that Jane Eyre wasn’t a real person in history, but we—I’m just going to say it—have a different tale to tell. The truth is that the events in Jane Eyre really happened, but not in the way they’re shown in the book. Charlotte (Brontë, that is) and Jane were actually pre-Victorian BFFs, and the whole book of Jane Eyre was just a cover-up for the ghost business. We’ve decided that the world deserves to know what actually happened.
Hand: So My Plain Jane is a companion novel to My Lady Jane, in that it was written by the three of us in a similar comic/fantasy/rewriting history vein, but it’s an entirely separate story with totally different characters and a different set of rules. So you don’t have to read My Lady Jane first in order to enjoy My Plain Jane. And you don’t have to read Jane Eyre or watch Ghostbusters, either—although if you do, you’ll get some of our sneakier jokes.
Meadows: My Plain Jane comes out June 26 and we think everyone should read it.
Hand: Yes, please read it! 

A Book and a Cup reviews it.

Hemsworth and South Elmsall Express is looking forward to this year's Bradford Literature Festival (June 29 - July 8), which will include

The Brontë Stones Project
This festival will also feature the launch of the Brontë Stones Project, which is a unique celebration of the legacy of the famous sisters. Curated and delivered by Bradford Literature Festival and originated by writer Michael Stewart, this project will feature four new, original works of writing, engraved onto stones in different locations. These stone will connect the Brontë sisters’ birthplace in Thornton and the Brontë family parsonage at Haworth, taking visitors on a journey in the footsteps of these incredible Yorkshire sisters. (Helen Johnson)

Rochdale Online reports that

A substantial reward has been offered after lead thieves have repeatedly targeted a historical building in Littleborough. [...]
Durn Mill, was located near Burn Bridge and was demolished after 1951. Today, West View, Durnlaw Close and Egerton Street are situated on the former mill site.
Brothers William (born 1836) and Alfred (born 1838) Law lived at Honresfeld, where enthusiastic art collector William kept a vast collection of paintings, manuscripts and rare books in the library. Known as the Law Collection, it included relics and manuscripts by the Brontë sisters, plus works by Turner, Rembrandt and Hunt.
Some of the manuscripts, original pencil and watercolours by Charlotte and Emily Brontë were sold in 1933, others were given to Law’s nurse and kept in the family before later being purchased by the Brontë Society.

The Telegraph and Argus announces that a 'potpourri' of subjects connected with Thornton will be displayed on June 30 at Thornton Methodist Church.

“The Brontë connection explains how Patrick Bronte came to the village and what he achieved within his five years of service here. There is a display of pictures of the much-missed Hill Top Gala.” (Helen Mead)

The Times reviews the play Machinal.

Reader, she married him, but, frankly, Charlotte Brontë would have been as flummoxed as we are. (Ann Treneman)

The Guardian comments on the fact that Donald Trump Jr 'wants to make literature great again' (ie. write a book):

After all, the man hails from a famously literary family. His father has “written” almost 20 books. His sister, Ivanka, has published two. Ivana, Donald Jr’s mother, released a memoir in 2017. Even Eric has been published; he wrote the foreword to Newt Gingrich’s book Understanding Trump, which came out last year. Donald Jr, it would seem, is the Branwell Brontë of the Trump clan. (Arwa Mahdawi)

A couple of French sites review the film adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Par chance, il y a la timide mais aventurière Juliet, - obligatoirement auteure d’une biographie d’une sœur Brontë - prête à tout pour découvrir ce qui se cache derrière les membres pittoresques, finalement pas si avenants, et la beauté de l’océan en furie. (Anne Diatkine in Libération) (Translation)

En 1946, la jeune écrivaine Juliet Ashton cherche un nouveau sujet de livre après avoir écrit une biographie d’Anne Brontë qui n’a rassemblé que vingt-huit lecteurs puis un recueil de chroniques humoristiques dont le succès fait soudain d’elle un auteur en vue. L’argent qui afflue et la fréquentation d’un officier américain l’éloignent des souvenirs de la guerre et de ses privations. (Corinne Renou-Nativel in La Croix) (Translation)

Cojestgrane24 (Poland) lists several screen adaptations of Brontë novels. Exeunt reviews Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre. Brontë Babe Blog travelled to Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum (to see the exhibition Making Thunder Roar and the Pillar Potrait back home) via the Worth Valley Railway.

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Jane Eyre in Rockford

A student production of the Gordon & Caird Jane Eyre musical in Rockford, IL:

Jane EyreJune 13-16 & July 18-22
RVC Starlight Theatre

Charlotte Brontë's great love story comes to life with music to lift your heart and set your spirit soaring. This beloved tale of secrets and the lies that secrets create, of unimaginable hope and unspoken passion, reminds us what it is to fall deeply, truly and completely in love. Nominated for five Tony Awards, Jane Eyre explores religion, sexuality and protofeminism, all while enchanting audiences with a timeless love story.
Jane's story begins in Gateshead, where she is in the unfortunate care of her cruel Aunt Sarah and cousin, John, as per her uncle's dying wish. The miserable young orphan is finally rescued when she is sent away to attend Lowood School for Girls. After six years, Jane leaves Lowood and is shortly after hired as a governess at Thornfield Hall. Here, she meets Mr. Edward Rochester, thus beginning her passionate and heart-wrenching journey of love, loss and the struggles of morality.

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Reminiscent of the Brontës

Several film reviews mention the Brontës today. The Harvard Crimson finds Mary Shelley 'disappointing and reductive' but reminds readers of the fact that,

It is rare that writers produce their best known works at a young age, but part of Mary Shelley’s fame lies in the fact that she created one of the most famous characters of all time at the tender age of 18. Unlike many renown British female writers who were childless, like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, Shelley was a mother. “Frankenstein” was written between her second and third pregnancies, after the death of her first two babies. (Aline G. Damas)

Radio Colonna (Italy) reviews A Quiet Passion.

Insieme a Cynthia Nixon, il cast può contare su una serie di ottimi comprimari, in primis Jennifer Ehle che qui interpreta la sorella piccola Vinnie, un duo che ricorda le Brontë o Jane e Cassandra Austen. [...]
A Quiet Passion deve molto alla letteratura inglese, Emily Dickinson amava leggere le sorelle Brontë e George Sand e Terence Davies stesso ha inserito la poetessa nel suo cinema [.] (Chiara Laganà) (Translation)

And Benzine (Italy) reviews Une question privée.

Le brouillard de Emily Brontë emplit tout le film, lui donnant un caractère fantastique, à l’image des partisans couverts de boue, présences spectrales sortant de la brume. (Denis Zorgniotti) (Translation)

Todo Literatura (Spain) reviews Zoé Valdés's new book La salvaje inocencia.

En la novela hay una retórica femenina de lo erótico que puede resultar tan empalagosa y aburrida como el onanismo.  Y hasta Ana de Noailles cayó en eso. Pero, claro, también hay una Santa Teresa, una Mariana Aljofarado, unas hermanas Brontë, una Virginia (Joaquín Álvarez-Coque) (Translation)
Woolf o esa poeta tremenda alemana que se llama Ingeborg y cuyo apellido ahora se me esfuma, y es entonces cuando la cosa se pone grave y hay que oír esas voces,  porque son las voces de la tierra madre, de Deméter, de Perséfone, de los grandes misterios y no hay hombre que haya siquiera alcanzado a tocar el cielo por el que ellas navegan como unas locas despeinadas, vociferantes y certeras.

Brontë Babe Blog posts about Alexa Donne’s Brightly Burning. On Facebook, the Brontë Parsonage Museum shared pictures of Aled Jones and the Songs of Praise, who were filming an episode to be screened next month. And also an alert from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Calling #Bronte fans! You can see the Museum at 3pm @BBCOne tomorrow (12/6) in an episode of #EscapetotheCountry with @Nicki_Chapman https://t.co/61EeVUgTDR

— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) June 11, 2018

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Animated and Iranian Wuthering Heights

This is a short animated film based on Wuthering Heights which has been touring specialized festivals during the last year:

بلندیهای بادگیر (Wuthering Heights)
Directed, Written and Produced by Shirin Ashtari
Original Music by Aftab Darvishi
Sound Design by Behrooz Shahamat
Runtime:7 minutes 30 seconds
Iran. Completion Date:February 4, 2017

This short animation is an adaptation of the classic Emily Brontë novel. It starts with the main male character, sitting on his bed playing with a slingshot as he suddenly jumps from the sound of a girl laughing, excitedly searching for her, and this is where the twilight zone begins.

Shirin Ashtari says:

“Wuthering Heights” is my first Animation as a director.
It also has the honor of being the first Animation adaptation of Emily Brontë’s masterpiece.
I presented the film, as the practical production of my MA thesis in Animation Directing in soore University,
The journey that had started many years ago when I first read the book, drove my feelings to give life and animate the passion that I always been through since that time.
Although, the making budget wasn’t huge, Wuthering Heights has managed to be an award winner and nominated for prizes and awards several times. 

This is a list of awards received by the film:

UNIVERSAL FILM FESTIVAL Kansas BEST ANIMATION
Sicily International Short League Sicily  SEMI FINALIST
Portsmouth International Film Festival Portsmouth, England Official Selection
Cardiff International Film Festival Cardiff, Wales  Official Selection
Conway Film Festival Conway Official Selection
Cyprus International Film Festival (CYIFF) Pafos Neapolis  Official Selection
Athens Animfest Athens  Special mention
Tracce Cinematografiche Film Fest Rome, June 26, 2018, WINNER

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'It is not just the writers, but what inspired them to write'

It seems like a reenactment of the novel, but The Times is actually concerned about suburbia spreading near Howards End and other literary sites such as Brontë country.

The final pages of Howards End are tinged with anxiety at the prospect of the “red rust” of suburbia eating its way into the rural idyll of the Hertfordshire countryside.
EM Forster’s fear, which was later taken up by writers including John Betjeman and WH Auden in a letter to The Times, now appears to be fully realised after a new housing development surrounding his childhood home was authorised by the local authority.
Campaigners under the banner Friends of the Forster Country are appealing to the housing minister after Stevenage borough council won approval from the planning inspector for almost 2,000 homes surrounding Rooks Nest House, where Forster lived between the ages of 4 and 14.
The bucolic landscape was first labelled “Forster country” in a letter to The Times in 1960, when Betjeman and other authors including Graham Greene and Vita Sackville-West called for it to “be allowed to remain as it is, rural farmland, not only because it is one of the last beauty spots within 30 miles of London but because it is the Forster country of Howards End”.
Stephen Pollock-Hill, vice-chairman of the campaign group, said that the landscape should be protected because of its literary heritage.
Mr Pollock-Hill, 70, who runs the Nazeing Glass Works in Broxbourne, on the Hertfordshire-Essex border, has started an organisation named Historic Artistic and Literary Landscapes to campaign for special protection for areas that have inspired classic works.
“There are certain parts of the countryside that are not protected by Areas of Outstanding Beauty or Sites of Special Scientific Interest but which are of literary interest,” he said. “It’s a new category to save places. Even Austen country and Brontë country are not protected.
“Now is the time to protect these sites for ever. We have some of the greatest writers in the world’s history. [The important thing] is not just the writers, but what inspired them to write.” (Jack Malvern)

Infobae (in Spanish) interviews Laura Ramos about her book on the Brontës, Infernales.

— Pero la convirtieron en nacional.— Si. Bueno, yo hice una biografía para hispanoparlantes para lo cual tuve que aprender inglés. No lo hablo bien de ninguna manera pero bueno, puedo leer textos del siglo XIX tranquilamente gracias a los Brontë porque estuve tantos años leyendo. Era todo en inglés o francés.
— ¿Cuántas veces estuviste la tierra de los Brontë?— Tres veces, entre el 2009 y el 2016 fue cuando fui a escribir el libro, pero había ido antes en 1994.
— Recién en 2009 tomas la decisión de escribir el libro.— Claro, claro. Ahí fue porque, bueno, yo le había prometido a mi padre que iba a ir a visitar el escritorio Marx en la Biblioteca Británica. Porque él me lo había pedido cuando le dije que iba a Inglaterra. Me dijo "bueno, anda a ver el escritorio de Marx en la Biblioteca Británica". Y yo no pude ir porque quería ver a las Brontë y me fui a la estación Victoria, me tomé un tren a Leeds y de ahí otro a Keighley y ahí me fui caminado y me metí en el mundo Brontë completamente… abducida. Y volví y mi padre se estaba muriendo en el Hospital Italiano y me preguntó: "¿Fuiste a ver el escritorio de Marx en la Biblioteca Británica?" Y yo, tomada muy por sorpresa porque estaba recién llegada de viaje, me había enterado y había ido corriendo al hospital, le dije: "No". Pero entonces se lo llevaban los médicos porque tenía problemas para respirar, y le dije así medio corriendo: "Pero fui a ver a las Brontë…", como diciendo bueno, algo hice. [...]
— ¿Hay alguna de las hermanas que en particular te interesaba más?— Yo creo que yo fui todas mientras lo escribí. O sea, leí muchísimas biografías inglesas antiguas sobre ellas, incluso la mejor que es una biografía inglesa gorda así donde está hasta los sermones que daba el padre. Esa biógrafa, que se llama Juliet Barker, odiaba a Charlotte, por ejemplo. Odiaba a su biografiada, es algo interesantísimo. Yo la iba leyendo, claro que hay que leerla con mucho, digamos, entrelíneas, pero llegó a odiarla. Y casi en todas las biografías que vi había alguna pasión entre el biógrafo y algunas de las biografiadas. Yo me identifiqué y lloré y amé y disfruté y me reí por cada uno de los cuatro. Incluido Branwell. No sé por qué, pero sentí que comprendía a cada uno de ellos. La más vulnerable es Anne, pero a la vez es la que menos talento tiene, pero es la más vulnerable y es la que menos educación recibió pero también se enamoró, tuvo una vida muy dramática y muy interesante. Branwell es odiable y querible porque bueno…
— Es el poeta romántico.— Claro, un poeta romántico que fue victimario en un comienzo y después fue víctima. Y Charlotte bueno, es sí, adorable, es adorable.
— La cabeza fría además ¿no?— La cabeza fría, claro, y a la vez era una bola de fuego. Era muy enamoradiza y se enamoraba enloquecidamente. Y es genial ver las cartas, yo tengo los volúmenes de cartas, porque ella se enamoraba, no quiero contar los secretos del libro pero, digamos, se enamoró muchas veces, rechazó cuatro propuestas de matrimonio, que era mucho. No era una mujer bella.
— Debía sufrir mucho ¿no?— Debía sufrir mucho, sí. Su editor dijo que pensaba que ella era la mujer que más sufría por no tener belleza. Que hubiera dado toda su fama y todo su genio a cambio de ser bella. Porque ella tenía una particularidad y era que tenía la cabeza exageradamente grande en relación a su cuerpo que era muy pequeñito, medía uno cuarenta y dos o uno cuarenta y tres. Y la cabeza era desproporcionadamente grande. Y además los rasgos no eran armoniosos. En cambio bueno, a Emily no le importaba. Emily disparaba el rifle de su padre y era, bueno, tenía un poder… (Hinde Pomeraniec) (Translation)

Terpshichore, Number 9 and Parkslife all post about Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre.

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Die Sturmhöhe in German radio

A complete reading in German of Wuthering Heights begins today, June 11, on the radio station NDR Kultur:

Die Sturmhöheby Emily Brontë
Read by Rolf Boysen (in 25 parts)
Translated by Grete Rambach
Monday to Friday
From June 11 to July 13;  22.00- 22.35 h.

"Die Sturmhöhe" erschien 1847. Es ist der einzige Roman von Emily Brontë, der mittleren der drei Brontë-Schwestern, die damals erst 29 Jahre alt war und ein Jahr später starb. Das Buch, das unter einem männlichen Pseudonym erschien, fiel so gänzlich aus allen moralischen und literarischen Konventionen der Zeit heraus, dass das viktorianische England mit Empörung darauf reagierte. Es ist ein Buch wie ein Naturereignis, wie ein Gewitter: Es handelt von elementaren Leidenschaften und getriebenen Menschen, wie sie nicht nur zur Entstehungszeit des Buches ungewöhnlich waren.

Random House (der Hörverlag) publishes the audiobook in a 10 CDs edition.

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In Cardiff and Boardman

A couple of Brontë-related talks for today, June 11:

1. In Cardiff:

Cardiff BookTalk: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
Wallace Lecture Theatre, Main Building
Park Place
Cardiff
Mon 11 June 2018
18:30 – 20:30 BST

Our final BookTalk event for the Spring will celebrate the bicentenary of Emily Brontë with a discussion of her only – confirmed – novel: Wuthering Heights.
When Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, one reviewer remarked that ‘the reader is shocked, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance.’ He concluded by saying ‘[w]e strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they have never read anything like it before.’
Like her intricate and avant-garde novel, Brontë fascinated and confounded many of her acquaintances and readers. Of her sister, Charlotte Brontë memorably wrote that an ‘interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world.’ Since then, Brontë’s life and her novel have been subject to endless reinterpretation by writers, filmmakers and artists from across the world.
This BookTalk event will feature three expert speakers who will shed light on the life, literary work, and cultural legacy of the woman known as the ‘sphinx of our modern literature…whose riddle no amount of research will enable us to read.’ The speakers are:
Dr
Amber Pouliot (Halaxton College), a Victorianist with interests in the Brontës, Victorian afterlives and literary tourism. She will be discussing incest fantasies about Emily and Branwell Brontë in interwar biofiction and biodrama.
Dr Catherine Paula Han (Cardiff University), a Brontë and adaptation studies specialist. Her presentation will focus on the enigma of the second generation of Earnshaws, Lintons and Heathcliffs in Wuthering Heights.
Dr Márta Minier (University of South Wales), a researcher and lecturer in translation, adaptation, European drama, theatre, literature and culture. She will be discussing the reception and reinterpretation of the Brontës within Europe and Hungary.

2. In Boardman, OH:

Reader's Choice Book Club-Boardman
Boardman Library
 6/11/2018 at 7:00 PM

 We will discuss "Jane Eyre", by Charlotte Brontë. Share your favorite books and find out what new ones are being published.

(Via The Vindicator) 

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